Tag Archives: playstation3

So I finally got around to finishing this game tonight, and I have to say it’s pretty amazing. Figured I’d post some impressions of what I thought of this reboot of the Prince of Persia series.

First off, the graphics of this game are really impressive. Instead of shooting for realism, Ubisoft went for a “make the game look like the concept art” approach, and totally succeeds. It’s kind of a cell-shading meets watercolor thing, and fits with the fantasy setting.

The primary focus is on the platforming, something which a lot of people whinged about the fact that the overall platforming experience is pretty easy. In a way it is, but it’s easy in an enjoyable way. You’re frequently faced with traversing areas with a sequence of timed jumps and specific button presses (kind of quick time event-ish in a way), and watching the Prince and his companion Elika doing these moves looks great. Yeah it’s not a hardcore experience, but the animations are extremely fluid, and doing roof crawls, ring flips, wall jumps and more looks just really badass. There’s no real way to die either, since Elika will magically save you from falling to your death.

Now that may make it sound ridiculously easy, but all it really does is save you the annoyance of having to do a load of a saved game all the time. It’s very fluid, and keeps you in the game.

Combat’s challenging, with each area boss requiring their own specific strategies to beat. You can’t just hammer the attack buttons though, or else they’ll mop the floor with your face. If you’re about to die, Elika will save you like she does when you’re platforming, but the balance here is the enemy gains a lot of health as well.

The story’s pretty good, and the voice acting is excellent which adds a lot to the dialogue scenes. The lead actor for the Prince is the same guy from Uncharted, so expect some similar cocky chatter that’ll make you chuckle.

Definitely going to play this through some more so I can whore for trophies, but if you’re looking for a pretty accessible game that’s a lot of fun and has some top notch production values you might want to check this one out.

Having recently picked up a PS3, the obvious choice for a first game to purchase is Resistance. It’s pretty much the best title out at this time, at least of titles which are exclusive to the PS3 platform.

The story concept is intriguing. World War 2 never happened, instead all of Asia and Europe are overrun by what seemingly is some kind of disease. You play an American soldier landing in England in the 50’s in an attempt to discover what’s been going on.

There’s some seriously awesome action here, and some pretty unique stuff happening, even for a first person shooter. A lot of that comes from the interesting weapons you have at your disposal. Given that Insomniac develops the Ratchet & Clank series, they’ve wielded their knack for firepower here with great results.

Weapons have primary and secondary fire modes, the latter usually doing something interesting such as putting up an anti-bullet barrier or letting you stop a missile mid-flight and steering it in a totally different direction. Or my personal favorite, the Fifth Element-inspired Bullseye, whos secondary fire mode shoots off a shell which acts as a tracking point for your bullets fired afterwards. Hit a target, and you can watch as your subsequent shots veer off towards them no matter where you’re pointing.

Coming from the Xbox 360 platform to this, the graphics are pretty damn impressive. Things may not have the high detail as say Gears of War, however the environments are gigantic and the artistic detail is much more appealing. It runs extremely smooth even with the 40-player multiplayer.

This is easily the best launch title in the PS3’s lineup, but it’s still fun now even after other consoles such as the 360 are hitting their prime. Scary to think where the PS3 will be in six months. Personally, I found this game to be much more engaging than a lot of other shooters out right now, and the unlockable additional weapons after finishing the campaign once make repeated plays not only warranted, but newly enjoyable. Check this one out if you’re at all into shooters, you won’t be disappointed.

As some might already know, I broke down last week and bought a Playstation 3 when picking up a copy of 300. I figured hey why get the DVD version when one should really do that movie justice and get it on a high-def format. Blu-Ray seemed the most sensible, given that the format has gained some serious popularity over HD-DVD. I have to say, the movie looks fracking fantastic. The clarity of the carnage is unparalleled.

I’ll have some actual BD (Blu-Ray Disc, for the uninitiated) reviews soon, but I just wanted to say that the PS3 itself is a great little console. They’re really not kidding when they make note of the potential of the thing, games right now are only scratching the surface while 360 is pretty much peaking in my opinion. There’s some seriously great stuff coming down the pipe for PS3 owners this year and beyond. The 360 still has some great games though, don’t get me wrong. Forza 2 is like automotive crack, and Rainbow Six Vegas is an incredible first person shooter.

It’s a good time to be a gamer overall, and the consoles are really appealing right now. The addition of a high def player in the PS3 is a definite advantage, letting me eliminate my DVD player from my home theater setup. It’s a pity the PC gaming scene is almost totally dead right now, with some obvious exceptions.